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Geo Share: An Android app to turn Google Maps URLs into geo: URLs (github.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/opensource

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F-Droid.

I think this app is a pretty essential app to anyone who want to leave Google Maps, so I am sharing it here for anyone who might need it.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Some Google Maps links containt actual coordinates,

http://maps.google.com/?ll=XX.XXXX,XX.XXXX

They are usually generated by 3rd party apps. Like taxi or delivery apps. But links shared from Google maps themselves are encoded on the server side and look like this:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/GJq5XvqhJnJsS8pU8

I don't see any reason to encode locations in this way, except to make life difficult for users of other maps. This should be considered anti-competitive behavior.

P.S. I just realized that Google Maps generates a unique link for each share and tracks every user who clicks on that link.